FA Issue Blanket Ban On Youth Football Match Reports For Being ‘Demoralising And Upsetting’

Chris Wright

10th, December 2015

8 Comments

youth-football

Seeing your name proudly on display in the local paper after a Sunday League match will sadly be a thing of the past for an entire generation of young footballers after the FA issued a blanket ban on the publication of youth game match reports a day or two ago.

In their infinite wisdom, the FA have seen fit to ban local newspapers, club and league websites and social media channels from reporting on youth matches on the basis that publishing results could demoralise young players.

Indeed, the Surrey Mirror have revealed they recently received a letter from the Surrey County FA urging them to cease and desist printing scores from Under-7 to Under-11 matches.

It’s all part of the association’s attempt to make the amateur game “more child-centred and less results-orientated” at that age. Seeing a heavy defeat reported in a local newspaper could upset young Billy, you see?

Surely actually taking part in a thumping defeat is equally demoralising for youngsters? Maybe we should just go the whole hog and eliminate competitiveness from football entirely? Remove the goals and instead just run hour-long, teamless passing drills (an approach the England national team seem to be pioneering).

For crying out loud. The ongoing sterilisation of football at all levels continues apace.

Posted in Newsnow

Share this article: Email

8 Comments

  1. przegosc says:

    Nothing wrong with that decision, I think. It’s their childhood years, let them have some fun instead of setting them under pressure from the very beginning. It’s enough to look at Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber to see how mentally demolished are people who grew up under the spotlight.

  2. Steve K says:

    The whole point of this is to make juniors football less “results orientated” which makes 100% sense.
    Why pass the ball through midfield, where everyone learns and develops and become better footballers, when you can win every game by hoofing it up to the freakishly big lad you’ve got up front? If winning is all that matters, you go for the latter.

  3. Steve K says:

    This makes perfect sense. If results are all that matter, just keep hoofing the ball up to the big lad who developed early and let him score. Why bother with teaching and developing the other kids if they get in the way of winning.

  4. Jimjam says:

    Surely nobody but Tim Sherwood reads these reports…

  5. Jeremia says:

    I quite clearly remember that once when I was 14 or 15 years old I played in a game my team lost and, to my amazement, I relised that I actually had fun. That was the first time I noticed that it is possible to have fun despite losing. The point is- for kids the result is everything, even more so than for their parents or coaches.

    Second thing- my 6 year old cousin really likes Chelsea, and he gets quite depressed when they don’t win. Surely the only sensible thing FA could do is banning the publication of results from the Premier League, after all, proffessional football is the very pinnacle of kids’ dreams, and I’d be willing to bet most U-11 players care more about the results of their favourite team rather than the one they’re currently playing for.

    And another thing came to mind- let’s say one team lost 30-0. Surely that’d be much less traumatic when a local newspaper would say that “despite the loss, the team played very well”.

  6. Jorge says:

    As Steve said the idea is to make the sport at that age less “results oriented,” I think the demoralising and upsetting component might be directed to parents, that tend to put undue pressure on their children and coaches to get “results.”

  7. Jammy says:

    Another sad day in the continued demise of our national sport, another clueless and weak governing body trying to dictate what should and should not appear in the national press as it desperately seeks another reason for the national team’s continued lack of success. Doesn’t seem that long ago that it was down to the numbers of foreign players in the Premier League, does it? Now it appears to be children under the age of 11 being demoralised by seeing a losing scoreline in the local rag. Clearly it didn’t do the likes of Gary Lineker, Tony Adams, Bryan Robson, David Beckham, the Nevilles, Paul Scholes, John Terry, Frank Lampard, Steve Gerrard, Ashley Cole etc etc etc much harm as they seem to have carved out pretty successful careers despite being “demoralised” by losing score lines appearing in the local press. Let them play, let them win, let them lose. It’s part of the game and a good lesson for life going forward. It’s all very well the FA bosses giving themselves the proverbial hernia because a hapless team has seen they’ve lost 10-0, but what about the disappointment of the lads and lasses who have won 10-0 but can’t have the joy of seeing the result and maybe their names in the paper because the FA are too busy pandering to the team that lost. Has it ever occurred to them that that may be pretty demoralising in itself and lead some players to wonder in the point of it all? And do people really think those 7-11 year olds don’t actually know the score when they leave the pitch win, lose or draw? The laughable part is that the directive of the various county FAs is that each age group at each club MUST write a report to their local paper – but without giving the score! It’s a lovely idea that children will learn to improve their skill levels in a friendly atmosphere – I have no issue with that – but to my mind we run the risk of breeding an entire generation of footballers armed with silky skills aplenty and technical nous but who cave in at the first sign of trouble because they’ve been mollycoddled through their formative years.

Leave a Reply